Gourmet

The UCLA Extension Writers' Program presents its annual Writers Faire, with 24 free mini-workshops and panel discussions on such topics as "Writing Your First Novel" and "Conquering the Dreaded Second Act. " Attendees can learn more about the program, register for fall courses at a 10% discount and grab lunch from three gourmet food trucks. UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., L.A. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. Free. (310) 825-9415. www2.uclaextension.edu/writers.

Just how many of your 1,361,988 Sunday readers do you think will actually make their own sausage ("Sausage: How to Stuff It, Cook It and Other Sausage Secrets," June 29)? Although I would have found the topic interesting for a one-column report, I think devoting so much space was a waste of ink. This holds true for your other featured articles about duck, exotic spices, creme frai^che and beef kidneys. What about recipes that real people will enjoy and share with friends? Sure, gourmet recipes bring interest to a boring table, but be realistic and not feature these all the time.

In 1950, Norma Laine's aunt bought her a copy of Gourmet magazine. Not long after that, Laine, co-owner of Cha Cha Cha Encino, says, "I remember my parents coming to dinner, and I made a cheesecake [recipe] out of that magazine--the original New York cheesecake. It was a big hit." Inspired by that success, Laine subscribed. By the late 1950s, "I decided I'd like to have all of them [Gourmet magazines] from the very beginning, January 1941."

About 200 unemployed young people invaded one of the city's most luxurious gourmet stores Saturday to demand public assistance and jobs. The protesters knocked over tins of imported Christmas cookies and threatened fragile jars of caviar in the century-old Fauchon on the Place Madeleine. "They entered through all the doors at once. We thought we were under attack," said manager Rene Cordanie. "We represent wealth and these youngsters are Communists. What are you going to do?"

Coffee importer Charles Behre says that when he started in the business in 1922, "you couldn't get a bum cup of coffee in town." Today, he thinks, "quality is a thing of the past." Behre began learning the trade with the C. E. Bickford firm when there were two dozen coffee importers bringing a million bags of green coffee beans a year into San Francisco's port.

Jean Newhall Coleman, a Camarillo homemaker, died Friday at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura. She was 78. Born Dec. 22, 1916, in Brooklyn, N.Y., she grew up on Long Island and graduated from Milton Academy in Milton, Mass., in 1934. For 25 years, she traveled worldwide with her husband, the late Capt. Walter Dan Coleman of the U.S. Navy. Mrs. Coleman moved to Ventura County four years ago from Tequesta, Fla.

Ira Slade, owner of Slades restaurant in New York City, has opened a place in Newport Center Fashion Island where American food with Mexican and French accents is available morning, noon and night (specifically, 6 to 10 a.m. for breakfast, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for lunch and 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. for dinner on weekdays; 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for brunch and 5:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. for dinner on Saturdays and Sundays). Dinner and lunch entrees average $10 to $14.

As an actor, Harry Lewis took second billing to the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, most notably in the 1948 film noir "Key Largo. " But he found his own starring role as a Los Angeles restaurateur who helped usher in the concept of the "gourmet burger" when he launched the ground-breaking Hamburger Hamlet restaurant chain, among others. Hamburger Hamlet - named after one of the signature items on the menu, as well as the role that beckons to actors of stage and film alike - became that rare high-low hit. Among the restaurant's regulars: Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr. and Tony Curtis - all Lewis' buddies from the film business. But it was also a place for Los Angeles families looking for a night out that included milkshakes.

British supermarket giant Tesco thought it had the Yanks all figured out. Determined to crack the U.S. market, it dispatched executives to live with American families, peek into their refrigerators and trail them on trips to the grocery store. It boasted of revolutionizing how Americans shopped. But slightly more than five years after it opened its first Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in California, Tesco is considering selling the money-losing chain and leaving the United States altogether.